


High ceilings and collapsing columns

by tennisuhs



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Character Study, Its implied, M/M, Mild Smut, doyoung as dionysus, i mean I COULD but not today, im not here to give you the nasties, taeil as apollo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 17:24:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16538969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tennisuhs/pseuds/tennisuhs
Summary: He, the corrupted God of wine, theatre, tragedy, wine and madness. Lost once everything came crumbling down, found himself crawling around the world, finding himself but also bumping into his opposite.





	High ceilings and collapsing columns

Another millenium passed in somber calm. No festivities to commemorate the loss of a great time, no mourning for what had been the baseline of multiple civilizations widely admired. It wasn’t surprising really, even thought there was frankly the crowd of people mildly interested in the origins, no one really wanted to go back to them. Ancient scrolls now turned into paperbacks, hard covers for those who felt the passionate need to turn their passion for forgotten gods and tales into a part of their will. Some other spurts of appreciation here and there, all of them merely scraping the surface of what it all had meant, what it all had been and how it all fell.

 

He couldn’t remember much of the downfall. In fact, he couldn’t remember much period. Slave of ecstasy and hedonism, his blurry mind only cleared out when he was on human soil. Dizzy, confused and terrified. The world was ending and all his family with it. Privilege and status proved to be nothing but a construct, never something they could grasp, no matter how many sacrifices and gold. There had been wrath, vengeance in someone’s gums; acceptance and defeat on other’s limp fists. 

 

So it all had amounted to that, huh?

 

It should have been right there, if he had to be honest with himself. It should have hit then that he was nothing but what the words about him told. Givens, symbols, powers and talents no matter how obscure. They had all been because of them, those who danced and yelled around a table filled with food and cups to the brim with wine. Nobody had taught him how to be a God, how to guide them, how to make his presence a positive thing in their lives. Because, after all, he was not a positive God: he was madness, excess, wine and lust. That’s what everyone wanted him to be, that was his role.

 

And a God is nothing but what its believers want it to be.

 

Chains should have broken around him when his back hit the ground. Pain. Warm and cold at the same time, shudders down his spine as he tried to stand up. Curls stained with blood and ruins all around him. That’s what freedom tasted like, felt like. Not to humans, but to him. 

 

Free will had been caged somewhere out of his reach the second he was born, his brothers and sisters damn and forced into rituals and sanctuaries as well. Some he had never met, other’s he had. One he couldn’t forget no matter the centuries.

 

The realisation of his imprisonment should have been crystal clear as the day the second he asked about his mother. Earning a hard slap that echoed through the walls of olympus. It wasn’t the pain, up there such a thing didn’t exist. Not even a sting. But the embers burning in the mother of all God’s eyes. So, he wasn’t really a God. Well, technically he was, but apparently not to the most puritarist one up there. A child of an unknown mother and a power seeking, lustful dad.

 

Foreign and new. Fresh meat for those who were anxious to eat him alive. There was only one thing left to do. If he couldn’t beat them, he’d join them.

 

It had to be one of the easiest things he’d ever done. Absurdly easy. He heard a lot whenever he eavesdrop: how he should act, what he should do, what was his position, his symbols, his events. Sacrifices coming every once in a while during sleepless nights. 

 

Whenever he was summoned on earth, something in his heart exploded, effervescent in his veins, smile curling in his lips. But at the same time, a tinge between his ribs, an ache. With the years he’d understand that was the small voice of morality, slowly dying inside of him, telling how he could always turn things around.

 

But, could he?

 

He had rules to follow, had to play the part. 

 

It was easier that way.

 

Only when the right to choose came at him like a stampede of bulls, he finally felt the voice again.

 

Now loud yells, a siren in his head freezing him into place as he walked to safety. Sitting against a stone wall, hands shaking as he held his pounding head, eyes frantically staring at each pebble under his feet. The pain increased with the panic, at the realisation he could have had it all: could have been himself, could have chosen his path if he hadn’t been such a coward, could have decided to break his ties to whoever decided for him, let himself love. 

 

If he hadn’t conformed to those ancient poets’ verses, to the gossip and devotion. He had had the power to do good. And he had wasted it.

 

A pair of hands found his knees, robes burned, brown at the edges, about to come undone. Vulnerable, hurt and desperate, he looked up. 

 

Him.

 

Most venerated God of the Sun, logic and rational thinking. His stark opposite. The one created to mend whatever he did wrong.

 

The one who made him think that maybe, love wasn’t out of the question.

 

“We need to get the fuck out of here.” it was funny to hear a God curse, and at such state the curly haired laughed, eyes still about to pop out of their sockets. “What’s so funny.”

 

“Nothing.” he defended, hands coming down from pulling at his hair, eyes fluttering shut. “Looking good, sunshine.” 

 

“Now it’s not the fucking time.” the other grunted, pulling him up arm cozy around his shoulders as they walked away from where everything was collapsing, feet meeting shaking ground and dust making them cough.

 

That had been their catharsis.

 

Not only because of the complete destruction of their world, but also for them as beings. They had to change names, to blend in, to find their place and never leave it again. Sunshine kept calling everything dangerous as he knelt down in front of him, cloth warm meeting the crimson on his forehead. He wouldn’t die. He was incapable of dying. But it sure as hell it seemed so, since his heart couldn’t beat any faster, lungs suddenly short of air. He was going insane.

 

“At least say something.” sunshine pleaded, voice quiet and calm to hide the fear building in his being. Sometimes, the mighty God of the Sun was easy to read. Only when he was so raw and fragile. Not a recurrent phenomenon. 

 

“What do you want me to say, sunshine?” he asked, eyes travelling from the other’s throat to his jawline, to his lips and finally up his eyes.

 

“Don’t call me that.” he dropped the stained cloth. Leaned in.

 

“Then how should I call you?”

 

His throat was sore afterwards, yelling and shouting and begging in a lenguage no one would ever be able to understand, a name so holly and sacred no human could pronounce. A name that just rolled on his tongue like nectar, his gut finally feeling full, after so many centuries of banquets, of wine. He finally saw a meaning to everything, each single passing second finally worth it. 

 

As he rocked with the other, their lips meeting over and over again in the tempo of a melody they invented. In a makeshift bed, barely a few scattered pieces of fabric and no pillows in the middle of burning columns and collapsing ceilings. They kissed each part of the other’s holy bodies, marveling in each others moans, like they had been each other’s preachers all this time. 

 

Daytime came, and he left to never see that sun for centuries.

 

He would have regretted it anyway. The sun could never lay with the sinful ways of the tragedy God.

 

Temples turned into pits of flames, towns and cities nothing but dust, new empires rose, new people with different Gods took over. The world was their oyster as he and his family fell into the shadow of history. They could only see a glimpse of their greatness in marble sculptures, however they would have to wait yet more centuries for them to reign the art scene.

 

And as the world kept moving, world history kept being written, he changed his name. He had many names to begin with, but only for the humans to mutter, to mumble, shout and plea. Throughout the years, the centuries, the countries, he was a different being. A man for most, a relique for those of his kind. Crossing desserts, surviving wreckages, tornados, famine and sickness, the world could offer him as much, he thought. One day he would have lived it all.

 

However, life kept surprising him, with its goodness and its patience, acquaintances turned into friends and some to lovers. Warm, kind and some more faithful than others. Even though he couldn’t stay with them forever, having to part with them had gone from painful to a ritual. He counted down the days before his goodbye the very second he felt the other falling for him.

 

It would be cruel to say he hadn’t fallen in love with the humans, and it would also be a lie. The semantics of love, however, changed for him: the only love he was used to receive from humans was adoration, always mixed with fear of his power. Now, it was pure and bright and it burned like a dying candle. It wasn’t enough. A God can’t love a human, not in the way humans are expected to be loved. So he loved them, each and every single one of them, but in that condescending manner, in a paternalistic way. 

 

Gods needed more. More love, more desire, complete devotion because that’s what they were willing to do for their significant other, they’d bring war, they’d make the entire planet bloom, Gods were known for their exaggerated everything and that counted loving. It pained him to know exactly for who he’d do all of that. 

 

The same sunshine like being who only took pity of him, bloody and confused him who had lost everything centuries ago. The same God who was supposed to be his antagonist, the good to his bad. The logic to his madness. The one who always found him when the world was dying. 

 

And after the second war that shook the earth, and hence their last meeting, he thought that maybe he could have it his way. That after all, mortals had forgotten about them, they had become fairytales and pieces of art: inanimate, mere objects to be admired. So perhaps, there was a way. Even if he couldn’t be the God he used to, because their rank had been indisputably revoked, and they were free.

 

It took half a millennium of heartbreaks, loss, mourning, tears and an unconditional feeling of yearning and aching for that golden body against his once more. The desire of the sun had never left him, it was there ever since olympus, ever since he learned how to roll his tongue with his name on it. 

 

Contemporary times developed in front of his nose like a strong northern wind, suddenly he found himself immersed in the future, in that realm of time everyone liked to theorise about. He was touching it, tracing its edges and diving into its developments. Found himself in a nice house, his non-earthly creatures helping him keep a quiet kingdom build from experience of business passed. If something piles up with immortality, other than deceased ones, is money. So he learned to not show his face, to not let anyone relate him with that fortune. To become invisible and hence, avoid awkward questions.

 

He had moved to a land that had never believed in him to begin with, sure knew about artist that tried to capture his essence, but never adored him for what he was given. For what he meant. To them he was merely a creature living in the same space, breathing the same air. And it finally clicked.

 

Immortal, flawed, irreversibly corrupted and forgotten. He was free.

 

Changed his name to match the countries phonetics: Kim Dongyoung or Doyoung for the closests of friends, those who had followed him after the fall.

 

Moved to the suburbs of the capital and barely left the house. When he did was to go to those magnificent churches, which was a passtime of his. There was something about those places, high ceilings and tinted windows, golden statues and the painful remorse. They made him feel holy again, just for a few minutes.

 

Basking in the light filtering through the highest window, blinding him even with his eyes softly closed, Doyoung sighed as he repeated his name. Not his own. But the one belonging to the owner of the sun. Not Helios, as much as he adored that kid, he wasn’t the God that made Doyoung realise just how lucky he was now that everything was over.

 

Now that the scrolls were nothing but a subject at school, no one paying them much attention, not giving them the religious importance they once held. Now that Doyoung could have a mortal name, mortal friends, a human job and a small puppy running around his backyard. Most want to become what he was, want to be part of the stars up in the sky. Yet, once you have it all, you realise how little is that you need.

 

And for Doyoung all he needed was slowly entering the place. Even when the world wasn’t at war, he managed to find him. Footsteps echoing through the old walls, up to the domes, welcomed with the open arms of the new found Gods. Doyoung smiled, almost shyly, eyes still closed and breathed in and out his name silently once more.

 

A hand on his shoulder, Doyoung finally opened his eyes agape, but only looked up when that same touch found his chin prompting it upwards. 

 

“Long time no see, sunshine.”

 

“Don’t call me that.” 

 

“Then how should I call you?”

 

“Moon Taeil.”

**Author's Note:**

> this was...something....anyway i hope you all enjoyed! whatever this was! as always here's my twitter @moonsdior and if you want to ask me anything my cc is @youngghos


End file.
